DOs and DON’Ts of Facebook Advertising

Facebook advertising is a rapidly growing mode of social media marketing – and with two billion people across the globe using Facebook every month, it’s not hard to tell why.

Facebook is also the parent company of social media giants Messenger and Instagram, extending Facebook ad reach even further than its 1.45 billion daily users.

With 400 new users signing up every minute and 44% of social media users saying Facebook influences their online shopping, it’s safe to say that brands have nothing to lose by marketing on Facebook.

Looking at these statistics, it’s no wonder why 42% of marketers report that Facebook advertising is critical or important to their business.

There are a number of different paid Facebook ad types – and the type of ad and its placement could be just as important as the ad content itself.

To promote traffic and leads to your website, the best Facebook advertising types to use are domain ads and page post links.

These are the most common and are generally used to promote external websites, generate likes and boost engagement.

For the promotion of sales and leads for your brand, there are a number of other options such as multi-product (carousel), dynamic product ads, lead ads and canvas ads.

Carousel ads are proven to be the most likely to be clicked as a brand can promote multiple products at a time, while canvas ads are predominantly used to promote visibility.

In comparison, dynamic product ads target users based on past actions and lead ads attract the user to fill in an email form with the bonus of not taking them away from Facebook.

Photo and video ad-types are great for engaging users, with slideshow and collection ads also rapidly growing.

It’s important to note that, though less effective, organic marketing on Facebook can still boost engagement through posting shareable and relatable content. Through word of mouth – or by getting users to simply push the ‘like’ button – businesses can still effectively market their brand.

Without further ado, let’s get into the dos and don’ts of Facebook advertising.

Starting out

DO: Know and narrow your target audience

DON’T: Waste money

Facebook is especially great for marketing as there’s such a large quantity of people on the site, meaning there’s always going to be someone you can target towards.

By narrowing your target audience to fit your brand’s demographic you can reduce the amount of money spent on disinterested Facebook users.

Spending just $1 per day on an ad can extend your reach by 4000, so don’t waste extra dollars by marketing towards people who aren’t relevant to your brand.

Optimise

DO: Benchmark and A/B or split test

DON’T: Forget about your competitors

A/B or split testing gives you the ability to test different versions of your ads so that you can see what works best and improve future campaigns, so its important to regularly monitor the results.

When optimising your ads, it’s important to remember to benchmark against your competitors too.

It’s likely that you will be using similar strategies to build up your engagement, so look at competitors’ campaigns to analyse the good and bad outcomes before finalising your ads.

Don’t forget to monitor the metrics of your ads, in particular the reach, view frequency, engagement and ad spend. Pay attention to your analytics and keep track of leads and impressions.

Ad content

DO: Call to action

DON’T: rely on likes to get you by

A call to action involves encouraging the targeted ad viewer to complete an action promoted by the ad, such as tagging a friend if the content was relevant, or registering for an email newsletter.

However, the important thing about using Facebook ads is you need the ad to create lead conversions, not just clicks and likes – without conversions, these clicks are almost irrelevant.

Make sure the call to action promotes the ad viewer to become a paying customer.

DO: Use relevant/interesting/engaging multimedia

DON’T: Use stock photos

They say a picture is worth a thousand words, so a picture on an ad makes it a lot more attention-grabbing and likely to earn a lead.

Photos and videos are great for catching the eye, but stock photos are a big no-no as they can lead your brand to seem less trustworthy.

People are more likely to trust a brand if they think they can see the people behind the marketing – for this reason, its best to stick to real images as they’re not only more interesting, but also more relevant to your brand than stock photos.

Ad copy

DO: get to the point

DON’T: be vague or write too much

It’s important to keep ads short and sharp to keep the attention of your audience – any longer than 25 words and it will be difficult to keep the audience interested.

Get to the point to increase your chances of getting the message across, and be specific to make sure the customer doesn’t lose interest before engaging with the ad.